Introducing ATLAS, DARPA’s most advanced robot

July 12, 2013

DARPA’s Atlas robot. You got a problem with that? Talk to the (four) hands. (Credit: DARPA)

He stands at 6′ 2, 330 pounds. His name: ATLAS — possibly the most advanced humanoid robot every built.

Move over Petman. The mighty ATLAS, Boston Dynamics‘ new robot, sports an on-board real-time control computer, 28 hydraulically actuated joints, two sets of hands, and a sensor head with LIDAR (measures distance with a laser, as in Google’s self-driving car) and stereo vision systems.

Now it’s time give him a brain.

On Monday, July 8, the seven competing teams that progressed from DARPA’s Virtual Robotics Challenge (VRC) arrived at the headquarters of Boston Dynamics in Waltham, Mass. to get started.

Their mission: build the software, and the actions of a human operator through a control unit, that will guide the complex suite of sensors, actuators, joints, and limbs that make up ATLAS.

Atlas will be designed to help the military perform rescue operations in situations where humans cannot survive, such as a Fukushima Daiichi power plant, which provided the inspiration for the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), according to DRC program manager Gill Pratt.

The teams have until late December 2013 to teach ATLAS the moves it will need to succeed in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Trials.

Each version of ATLAS will have to perform a series of tasks similar to what might be required in a disaster response scenario, said Pratt.

The goal of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) is to generate groundbreaking research and development so that future robotics can perform the most hazardous activities in future disaster response operations, in tandem with their human counterparts, in order to reduce casualties, avoid further destruction, and save lives.

In June, the top six teams earned funding and an ATLAS robot from DARPA to compete in the DRC Trials in December 2013, competing for a $2 million prize (DARPA is also funding several other “Track A” teams to construct their own robot and compete in the Trials).

Thanks to the physical modeling of the DRC Simulator, the software algorithms that were successfully employed by teams in the VRC should transfer with minor tuning to the ATLAS hardware, Pratt said.

Updates for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, including task descriptions and rules for the DRC trials, will be posted on the www.theroboticschallenge.org website.

comments 40

I have two robot vacuums but looking at this robot scares me. The future is inevitable. A robot like this will replace common workers. The Google self driving car will evolve to self driving trucks and replace all truck drivers.
I may not live to see this future but it is going to happen.

Its amazing but the parallels to the SCI FY movies for the terminator are really scary.

I n the text mentioned that ” Now it’s time give him a brain ” what is the function of that brain, what is your requirements, how are you going to do it (Do you have a brain model?) who is going to do it ?
Please kindly reply back

I am not particularly impressed with this robot’s feet and mode of walking. There are more advanced feet for sure. But it is amazing still and a very good platform for this DARPA robotic competition. Like the Voyager spacecraft and other distant vehicles, the software just keeps on getting better and better and the upgrades make the hardware capable of doing things not previously imagined. Not all, but some good robots need to be humanoid because the world infrastructure is (currently) designed for people, from stairs to tractors to water faucets.

I give it around 10 years, and we’ll see humanoid robots become ubiquitous doing many complex physical tasks that only people do now.

It’s a question of getting the hardware with terabytes of RAM shrunk enough to where it can fit inside the robot’s brain together with something like an IBM Watson equivalent for object & environment recognition and manipulation.

For robots operating in a “limited” range/area their brains do not have to reside inside the robot itself. All they need is to bring most of their sensors with them, the rest can be done with remote connection.

Sad the dev money is coming from DARPA, but at least its coming. ATLAS will dramatically improve over the years. Based on where we are now it seems to me that before the decade is over we will have androids that are quite capable.

Interesting that ATLAS uses LIDAR, same as Google self-driving cars. IF these go into production that will help drive down LIDAR costs for both of them.

-”The warmongers should pay the price for their deeds.”
Yet they still continue undisturbed and it will only get worse.

-”And what about the character-building effects of military discipline? ”
Mindless obedience? Serving as cannon fodder for unnecessary wars? Character armor? I fail to see this as “character-building”. Oh the irony! Making machines out of humans and then lamenting when the real machines do a machine’s job.

-”Besides, what you just mentioned shows that this development increases unemployment in many ways, besides the obvious rationalization process.”
That is such a reactionary narrative. It doesn’t seem like you have grasped the severity of the situation. Automation is a cause for elation, for it creates opportunities enabling self-realization and individual autonomy. It could potentially serve every single person on this planet. It could have done so 10 years ago. Instead of worrying about it, why not question the root assumptions of the system itself? Like the infinite growth paradigm? It’s rotten to the core and anti-human. It’s always hard for proposed solutions like the Unconditional Basic Income to gain recognition, which should tell you something right there about how this dire situation is politically desirable; what a struggle it actually is to really change something for the better. Instead of just endlessly complaining about how the house of cards is inevitably falling apart and that it cannot be put back together again, correct the priorities of the system. It should serve us, not vice versa.

-”Are you a fan of unemployment?”
Indeed I am. Human beings do not become “valuable” only if they enter transactional relationships to perform some wage labour (that could have been automated long ago) for a treadmill of a system that is based on ruthless competition dictated by a blind dynamic that ultimately rewards only the most predatory “select few” who just so happen to sit at the top of the pyramid with tight control over all kinds of resources which are more often than not kept artificially scarce to exploit the time and energy of the unfortunate. This master-slave symbiosis constantly reinforces itself and needs to end. There is a silent death sentence hanging over everyone inside the system. It’s hovering above an abyss, and if there is nobody to whom you can prostitute yourself and nobody is able to pay you for your goods & services you will fall. Everyone loses in the long run. I for one do not want to live in such a barbaric world. The system needs to be built upon a solid foundation (e.g. UBI). And no, stating such things does not make me a communist or a socialist. I just place human life and individual freedom before arbitrary abstractions like “economy” and other such modern golden calfs. Automation, like any liberating technology, beautifully exposes the short-sightedness and sheer inability of the conditioned old way to cope with the freedom of the new way.

But hey, what do I know right? For all I care, people can just go on and do business as usual for all eternity if that fulfills them, but don’t scapegoat the machines when this primitive economy finally shoots itself in the foot.

-”Ps: Bio-Atlas could lift the whole world”
PS: That sounds very Ayn Randian. Would explain a lot.

I’m not sure getting yelled at by unphilosophical order-following sociopaths is all that character-building, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt in that I think it helps people wake up early and make appointments on time. Then again, Henry David Thoreau also woke up on time, and he refused to be conscripted into others’ causes. As a total libertarian, between Thoreau and Rand, I believe Thoreau had the more admirable “character.” He really said it all in “Resistance to Civil Government.”

“Sorry, but making leftist claims is easy, especially if you’re unemployed, rebuting them is harder, especially if you’re employed.”

Universal Basic Income was proposed by people like Nixon & Milton Friedman, and it’s the only thing that’s gonna save capitalism. The injection of IT & automation into our economy started in around 1960, and will continue until machines perform all paid jobs. Andrew McAfee, an economist from M.I.T., explains it well bringing evidence for his points in the form of charts.

One more thing, if you think that the US economy is pure capitalism, think again. Pure capitalism is having children work 10 hrs a day, 6 days a week like our country the USA had in the 19th century during laissez faire times in the 1880′s. And after the bank & car industry bailouts of 2008 & 2009, it should be a sign that pure capitalism is a fairy tale. No, we are part of an economy that is a hybrid between capitalism & socialism just like in Europe. And it has been so for many decades. The difference is that in the US, we have a hard time recognizing it.

In the end, I agree with McAfee and the robots will end up serving & liberating us from having to work for survival.

Capitalism has a bad name from people like yourself who create straw men named capitalism and then beat them down with gusto. I have the right to property ownership, and this includes all “capital” that can be traded, including my labor, my body, my property, my DNA, etc. If we own our own bodies, we can decide what to do with them. Everyone owns at least the capital of their own bodies.

To say otherwise, suggests that a lawmaker or his thugs has a right to prevent the singularity by denying our right to modify ourselves.

Central-bank managed socialism (replete with perverse incentives to keep us all on the hamster-wheel of perpetual spending before our paper returns to its intrinsic value) is not capitalism, and does not resemble capitalism. That then leads to corporatism or protectionism, the corruption of the largest and most profitable, and their submission to, then merger with, the state.

“Capitalism has a bad name from people like yourself who create straw men named capitalism and then beat them down with gusto.”

If you read my comment, you’ll see that I didn’t make a straw man argument by saying that we live in a capitalistic society. On the contrary, I stated that we are in a hybrid capitalism/socialism. And I tend to agree with your statement

“Central-bank managed socialism…”

which is a negative aspect of socialism.

There are better alternatives like Jacque Fresco’s Resource Base Economy, but it wouldn’t be implemented until our present economy would collapse. Meanwhile, we have to work with what we have, and a Basic Income is gonna be required in order to save our hybrid form of capitalism, which eventually will lead to a Resource Base Economy. If you disagree, be free to suggest a better implementable in practical terms economical alternative.

“Mindless obedience?” of military personnel.
Why does this myth persist? Having worked extensively in both the civilian and military worlds, the mindless drones are all on the civilian side. The military has unfailingly surprised with its individual flexibility and autonomy at all levels. The ONLY strict inflexibility in the military system is responsibility. You hold the position, you are responsible. The business world (and esp. government) seem to be all about dodging any kind of responsibility.

The Point: the ideal for a politician is a weaponized ATLAS that will in fact, act blindly AND can be blamed for any situations that become embarassing eg ‘It was a software error. We are investigating.’

No right-thinking person would ever join the current U.S. military. Those misguided-but-well-meaning empaths who join soon realize that they have joined a criminal organization that requires evil of them. This is why so many of them commit suicide.

That there are far greater evils in the world doesn’t excuse culpability for this evil. The second the USA stopped being a constitutional republic, joining the military became a stupid (unwittingly self-destructive), bad choice. (1910 creation of the FDA and AMA, 1913 creation of the Federal Reserve Plantation, or 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act are all good places to draw the line, since they amount to the state claiming ownership of all people)

However, the stupidity of joining the military is actually smarter than many of the other choices military recruits make, so it actually improves the standards of living they operate under. Nonetheless, it’s primitive, uncivilized, and detrimental to society as a whole.

How dare the military use military men to wage their Colombian drug war? That’s insane. It has nothing to do with national defense. That should be a big a-bomb-blast-sized clue to those considering military “service.”

Of course, I have to agree that most people are even less informed than those who sign up for military service, because only a small number of people sign up for the military, and those people are then forced into minimum levels of competency with a rifle, placing them above the sheeplike and servile residents of the major cities in the USA. Many of them later figure out how badly they’ve been lied to, and become Ron Paul supporters (he received more military contributions than Obama in 2008 and much of 2012).

There is a hierarchy of decision competence. Those who choose to obey the chain of command (that has people like Cheney and Rumsfeld at the top of it) have chosen poorly. If this isn’t patently obvious, then please, revisit the Nuremburg defense, and ask whether it is valid because you have stars and stripes behind you instead of a swastika.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsFEV35tWsg
–It’s not just “a few bad apples.” It’s a military industrial complex built by “bad barrel makers” for the purpose of stealing money by creating “bad apples.” The few good apples can’t restore the rotten apples in the bad barrel to freshness. The system depends on that fact.

“Unemployment in those fields that are likely to get the worker killed? Yes, I am in favor of unemployment in such fields.”

And why?We can lower well-fare related taxes if we keep the jobs that literally (!) kill unemployment!Do you like high taxes!?

For example: Worker one dies and is not unemployed anyway, prospective worker two rushes in for him, and is not unemployed anymore.The total set of unemployed people shrinks because of these jobs, which send the -possibly unemployed- workers to permament holiday in heaven.

Heaven (and low taxes) is better than any well-fare program!

So you see, given the strength of my arguments, it becomes obvious that my position must be supported by any rational and humanistic (!) person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=dSSfD_M2hEg
(This cop went on to murder an innocent person and his pet after minimal provocation, believing his partner would help him cover it up, because there were no witnesses. If his partner hadn’t been a decent person, we’d have never heard about this.)
The policing standards have to be lax when the laws themselves are sociopathic. The sociopathic nature of our government runs deep, because it is sociopaths who make the laws, and sociopaths who enforce the laws. Only sociopaths think it’s OK to assault people and imprison them for drug use. No non-sociopath would ever assault someone for recreational drug use, much less ruin their life, stamp them with a felony conviction that will follow them for the rest of their lives. That’s institutional sociopathology, what Lobaczewski called a “pathocracy.”

It isn’t that one day, a dictator suddenly lowers everybody’s standards. Those standards begin with inconsistent philosophies, that make exceptions for treating people with kindness and empathy. The sociopath lawmakers exploit jealousy and bigotry to play on inherent human prejudice of the unknown or different. Individual lawmakers make names for themselves by successfully demonizing certain minority demographics of innocent people, who lack the political organization or will to defend themselves.

A good example of this was Tom Daschle and Joe Biden’s assault on the electronic music industry. The earlier demonization of drug users allowed them to wholesale violate the property rights, and entire Bill of Rights, for anyone hosting a music venue, by associating them with the already-demonized “drug users.” This incremental expansion of demonized demographics eventually means that everyone is breaking some law, all the time. This then allows police to run roughshod over the citizenry, as first-class citizens, knowing that anyone can be arrested and successfully charged if they don’t act in a servile and appeasing manner to this new royalty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause
The title of nobility clause in the U.S. Constitution, like the rest of the Constitution, (except its flaws: the “general welfare” clause and “necessary and proper” clause) is a dead letter. The power enjoyed by judges, prosecutors, bureaucrats, and police today has conferred them the “de facto” status of “nobility.” Sadly, such theft-motivated, power-seeking sociopaths are the least “noble” people in our society, and their actions bear this out.

While the general public remains blissfully unaware of their enslavement and mulcting by fiat currency inflation, the sociopaths are very aware that their shell game cannot last forever. Thus, they take steps to ensure that, as the brutality necessary to enforce their illegitimate laws increases, the legal capacity for that brutality and preparation for it, expands as well. This means that: the state continues to prepare for a level of force that exceeds the current use of force, and expands its scope to those who are waking up to the needless brutality.

Thus democracy slowly degrades, first losing the veneer of republicanism, and then losing its core democratic checks on government power (open elections, proper jury trials, widespread firearm ownership and carry).

Gas powered. They’ve muffled the noise from earlier videos I’ve seen, but its still fairly loud.

Providing enough power still really is a problem with these kinds of robots, but battery energy density continues to improve and I believe that these can also be made lighter and more efficient, but these are just prototypes for testing and improving capability, so energy efficiency isn’t the engineering focus atm.